On the deck, a lively open-air dance was being held. Pairs of white people were pacing and circling in their arms to the rhythm of the dance music, while the Chinese were much more reserved. Most of them were sitting nearby, drinking drinks, smiling, watching, or chatting in low voices.
Talk about topics you like.
These Chinese people have great backgrounds. In addition to Finance Minister Kong Xiangxi, Navy Minister Chen Shaokuan, and Executive Yuan Secretary-General Weng Wenhao, there are also Zeng Rongfu, Executive Undersecretary of the Ministry of Railways, Zhu Changnian, Customs Supervisor, Zhang Fuyun, Director of Customs Affairs of the Ministry of Finance, and Zhang Fuyun, Director of the Ministry of Industry.
Guo Bingwen, director of the International Trade Bureau, and Mei Lehe (British), director of the General Taxation Department of Customs.
In addition, there are a large number of secretaries, military attachés, commissioners, translators and technical staff.
Just looking at the composition of the special envoy, we know that it is not as simple as celebrating the coronation of the British King. It also needs to perform a series of diplomatic, trade, loan, technical cooperation and other tasks.
Kong Lingyi, the eldest daughter of Kong Xiangxi, was undoubtedly the center of attention at the open-air dance. There were also many handsome men in the special envoy, but under the watchful eyes of Kong Xiangxi and Song Ailing, these young Chinese officials did not dare to act rashly. In the end, they could only take advantage of the foreigners, one with a head and a face.
A middle-aged foreigner smiled and invited Kong Lingyi to dance.
Zhou Hexuan came out of the cabin after taking a nap, walked to the deck and took a look around. He saw that only Kong Xiangxi's table was still vacant, so he walked over generously.
"Can I sit here?" Zhou Hexuan asked.
"Of course, please sit down!" Although Song Ailing didn't like Zhou Hexuan, he still had basic manners and etiquette.
Kong Xiangxi smiled and nodded to Zhou Hexuan. Kong Lingjie also raised his head and looked at Zhou Hexuan, his eyes full of curiosity.
Kong Lingjie is Kong Xiangxi's youngest son. He has just turned 16 this year. He is 70% similar in appearance to his father, but more handsome and handsome. Before he gained weight, this guy was still a handsome boy, and he was very polite, at least not attractive.
Disgusted.
"Mr. Zhou!" Kong Lingjie stood up to greet him.
"Hello," Zhou Hexuan glanced at the book in the other person's hand and said with a smile, "Master Kong is reading "Red and Black" at a young age. How much can you understand?"
Kong Xiangxi smiled and said to his son: "Lingjie, Mr. Zhou is a great writer. If you have any questions, you can ask Mr. Zhou for advice."
Kong Lingjie explained seriously: "I heard from my teacher that "The Red and the Black" was the foundation work of European critical realism in the 19th century and a great world masterpiece, so I read it. As for how much I can understand, I don't know.
I just find it interesting."
"Hahaha," Zhou Hexuan laughed and praised, "Interesting is the motivation for reading. Master Kong has already mastered the art of reading."
"Really?" Kong Lingjie was quite surprised. After all, the person who praised him was a Nobel Prize winner in literature.
Hearing that her youngest son was praised, Song Ailing said proudly: "Of the younger generations in our family, Lingjie is the most talented in reading. He has always performed very well in school."
No one could have expected that decades later, the richest member of the Kong family would be Kong Lingjie.
This guy worked as a diplomat for Lao Chiang Kai-shek for ten years, accumulated deep network resources, and used these resources to engage in foreign trade and securities in the United States. After having the start-up capital, he gave up politics and went into business to become his own boss. He first purchased a large area of wasteland in Texas, USA.
, started off by relying on underground oil resources, and then entered the U.S. real estate industry. His net worth far exceeds that of his father and brother.
Unlike his miserly father and arrogant and domineering brother, Kong Lingjie is very low-key and extremely insecure. He almost never appears in public and builds his villa into a bunker with a well-equipped underground air defense shelter - the shelter has
Emergency rooms, holding rooms, fire extinguishing systems, power supply systems and entertainment venues.
The gate of this bunker villa is built as a tower turret and is equipped with protective steel armor. It can not only resist bombing and tank assaults, but also build an artificial lake above the shelter to prevent neutron penetration during a nuclear bomb attack.
God knows what Kong Lingjie was thinking. He actually built a bunker villa for himself in the United States, and even took nuclear bombing into consideration.
Could it be that the bombing in Chongqing cast a shadow?
A strange family.
Zhou Hexuan was chatting without a word, and not long after, Kong Lingyi, who had finished dancing, came over and sat next to Zhou Hexuan, chattering non-stop.
Facing several Kong family members, Zhou Hexuan couldn't help but think of Kong Lingkan who was studying in the United States.
Doesn’t Mr. Kong like other people’s wives?
Zhou Hexuan graciously satisfied him, and asked friends from the Hongmen General Hall in Wuzhou to help Kong Lingkan find a beautiful white woman in her 30s. The woman was a has-been star in Hollywood, and she had performed in musicals on Broadway before.
After five husbands, this one has not been divorced yet, which is exactly in line with the taste of Mr. Confucius.
Since the fall of last year, Kong Lingkan has not been going to school very much, and he has been dancing and watching movies with a pretty married woman all day long. The woman completely regarded Kong Lingkan as a mobile bank, and in just a few months, he had squandered 20,000 US dollars.
It’s almost draining Mr. Confucius’s funds for studying abroad.
And the woman's husband was on the verge of bankruptcy during the Great Depression. Although he still ran a factory, he owed a large amount of debt to the bank. Hongmen was setting a trap to trap him. When this man was desperate, he would definitely start from Kong Lingkan.
Make up your mind.
When the time comes, another gunman will be sent to take advantage of the chaos to ensure that Kong Lingkan's death is not clear and that he has nothing to do with Zhou Hexuan.
In order to kill Kong Lingkan, Zhou Hexuan spent a total of 50,000 US dollars in activity funds. This huge sum of money was enough for the Hongmen brothers to help hard. After all, many Hongmen people were paupers.
On the deck, Zhou Hexuan chatted and laughed with the Kong family, without any sense of guilt in his heart, because it was not a pity for a man like Kong Lingkan to die, and keeping him alive could only harm the Chinese people.
"Mr. Zhou, I heard that you know the King and Crown Prince of Sweden?" Kong Xiangxi suddenly asked.
Zhou Hexuan said: "It's just acquaintance, no friendship. Minister Kong is going to visit Sweden?"
Kong Xiangxi nodded and said: "I received a domestic secret telegram yesterday from Wang Jingqi, the Minister to Sweden and Norway, reporting that Sweden has a lot of money and that the country's banks and industrial circles are interested in cooperating with China. The most important thing is that Sweden has no international ambitions.
Borrow money from them and you won’t have to worry about future problems.”
Zhou Hexuan suggested: "If you want to borrow money from Sweden, you should do it as early as possible. Cooperation between the two countries is purely for commercial interests. Now Japan is eyeing it, and it is very likely that something will happen again. Once something happens, Sweden's confidence in China will be reduced, and cooperation will be more difficult."
It will increase."
Public is public, private is private.
While Zhou Hexuan deliberately tried to trick Kong Lingkan into death, he also spared no effort to help Kong Xiangxi with advice, because borrowing money from Sweden was an act that was beneficial to the country.
Historically, Kong Xiangxi traveled all over Europe and the United States, asking for loans everywhere. Sweden originally intended to borrow money, but before the negotiations were completed, the all-out war of resistance suddenly broke out. The Swedes were afraid of losing their money, so they immediately canceled the original loan plan.
It is very interesting to say that although the "golden decades" of the Republic of China are despised by others, they are real in the eyes of the great powers. With the Nanjing government's continuous victory in the civil war and the smooth implementation of the unified tax policy, the Chinese market
It is increasingly favored by the great powers.
Coupled with the global economic crisis in the past few years, capital from various countries have come to China to seek profits. In the past few years, consortiums from Germany, the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and other countries have swarmed in and signed large-scale railway loan contracts with the Chinese government.
Even the American consortium, which has always been extremely cold towards Chinese borrowing, has changed its view at this time. Now the President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, Pearson, is personally visiting China to discuss cooperation with the Minister of Railways, Zhang Jiaao, and is willing to provide China with a large amount of loans.
of credit.
What Zhou Hexuan saw was that the Japanese were about to attack, but what US Ambassador to China Johnson saw was a rapidly developing Republic of China.
Johnson specifically called the U.S. State Department and said: "Many foreigners have to be deeply impressed by China's achievements in agriculture, industry, transportation, etc. in recent years... Under the leadership of the National Government, a period of economic development has begun
Coming." Johnson also said that consortiums from Britain, France, Germany and other countries have provided large loans to China, and the U.S. government should also actively participate in investment in China.
It can be seen from Jensen's report that on the eve of the all-out war of resistance in 1937, China's development momentum was extremely optimistic by the great powers. If there had not been Japanese invasion, Chang Kaishen would have spent another ten years to gradually eradicate domestic warlords. Although China
Not to mention becoming a powerful country, at least it can develop to a certain level of prosperity.